Page 36

Sophie used to tell me, “Go to her. Talk to her. She’ll understand.” She said it like it was simple—as if pain recognizing pain should be enough. But what Sophie didn’t see was the way I kept my grief folded tight, like a letter sealed and locked away.

I didn’t want another pair of eyes prying into the hollow parts of me. I wanted the ache to be mine alone—sharp, sacred, untouched.

The silence hangs in the air, thick and heavy, like the moment before a storm breaks.

Henry’s big body deflates, the tension in his shoulders fading as he looks at me. There’s no anger in his gaze now, no pressure. Just a quiet tenderness, the kind he only lets slip through when he thinks no one’s watching. It’s a softness I’m not ready for—like the weight of all our years together suddenly shifting in the air between us.

“It won’t be for long,” he says, voice steady and low, like he’s trying to plant something solid between us—a lifeline. “Just long enough to get the legal stuff sorted. Until his last name’s Wilder.”

There’s a pause. A beat, and then the corner of his mouth lifts in the faintest, most rueful smirk.

“Then you can take your stubborn ass right back across those thirty-six yards to your own damn house.”

The words hit me hard—half a lifeline, half a dare, wrapped in care. It’s the closest thing to a promise, but also a challenge. But it is more than that, I’m risking more by agreeing to this fucking sham than he’ll every know.

Then I think of that little boy and I shove all that aside, because Henry is right. Someone stepped up and saved us, and my heart can’t take knowing I could have done something for this child and didn’t.

After Henry fills me in on Cece’s slick-ass comment to the caseworker about me being his fiancée earlier, I make a mental note to sweetly ask Crew to piss in her drink the next time she shows up at Bangers. The nosy bitch. She has no idea what kind of mess she’s stirred up.

That mess? Led to me being asked to move in with the one person I’ve wanted my whole damn life but never let myself have…and with a little boy I could never truly call mine.

Boy, the universe really has a twisted, cruel-ass sense of humor. Like it is dangling everything I’ve ever wanted just close enough to feel, but never close enough to keep.

I shift on my feet, the weight of it pressing down like the humid summer heat settling into my skin.

“You know this is a horrible idea that will end badly.” The words fall out of my mouth thick and rough, tasting like ashes I can’t swallow. I hate that I’m giving in. Hate how much the pull of him feels like a chain wrapped tight around my ribs, squeezing me from the inside out.

Henry doesn’t flinch. His eyes are sharp, steady—like he’s reading the map of every fear I’m hiding beneath the surface. He leans in, the heat of his breath brushing against my cheek, close enough I can catch the faint scent of tobacco and something woodsy—like cedar and rain.

Then, impossibly, he boops my nose with the lightest touch—a ridiculous, childish gesture—but it lands like a spark, igniting a flare of something wild and unspoken between us.

“Wildflower,” he murmurs, voice low and laced with a kind of reckless confidence. “I’m expecting you to raise a little hell, fight me, scratch and claw. Matter of fact, if you take it easy on me, I’ll be a little disappointed.”

The words hit me hard, tangled with heat and promise and that dangerous kind of hope I’m terrified to feel.

Before I can even catch my breath, Aunt Joe’s voice cuts through the charged air—dry, amused, carrying that Southern drawl like a whip cracking in the room. “Whew! Quick, Mags, turn that fan on high, because they just made it hotter than a whore in church on Sunday in here!”

I glance over at Aunt Joe, and she’s fanning herself with a menu, practically collapsing into her chair. Her legs are spread just enough to resemble a melted ice cream cone, completely defying any attempt at dignity. She’s slouched low, practically horizontal now, like she’s given up on life and is just waiting for the world to end.

She meets my gaze and, with a dramatic sigh, mutters, “If I die from heatstroke, I’m blaming you two.”

Her dry tone barely covers the amusement dancing in her eyes. It’s like she’s watching a slow-motion car crash and enjoying every second of it. I fight the urge to laugh, the tension between me and Henry still crackling like an electric wire.

“So,” she says, cool as can be. “Need help packing?”

I pace Henry’s living room, every step uneven, like the floor might give way beneath me. My heart’s thudding too loud, too fast—each beat a jolt that runs down my spine. My nerves are stretched tight, wound up like barbed wire under my skin, ready to snap. Any minute now, a little boy—barely holding his life together—will walk through that front door, and I can't stop moving.

Like somehow, if I just keep going, I won’t fall apart.

Henry sits on the couch like he’s got time to waste. Freshly showered, hair still damp and curling at the edges like it always does when he doesn’t bother to tame it. He’s stretched out, legs wide, one arm draped casually over the back of the couch like he owns the place—which he does, of course—but it’s the ease that gets to me. That maddening, infuriating ease.

Like none of this cuts him open the way it does me.

Like he hasn’t lit a fuse between us and handed me the match.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. He just watches, those dark eyes steady, tracking every pass I make across the room like he’s clocking weather patterns—like he knows the storm’s coming and he’s already decided to let it hit.

I pretend not to notice. Pretend his gaze doesn’t crawl up my spine, doesn’t make my skin feel too tight for my bones. Pretend this house doesn’t hum with the history we never got to live.